Because my cell phone stopped working and I still have the internet and the Man is watching me and reading this as I speak. Crazy apocalyptica stories always start with small electrical disturbances. Pretty soon there's a pyramid growing out of fog in your fridge and instead of being in pajamas sitting on your bed wishing you hadn't eaten so much dinner you are dressed all sexy but your skin's super pale and aliens have taken over the whole city. Or you are sitting comfortably in your easy chair, curled up in a blanket watching a movie when the screen goes to fuzz and the back screen door bangs the house as the wind blows this way and that.
The cell phone tower is down and so I'm thinking it's more like terrorists who have yet to bore beneath the city's streets and take from us our internet. Tomorrow I will wake to the dark ages and when I go to catch the bus there will scarcely be anybody on it because anyone who's with it was watching KING 5 news and knows that Jim Foreman, crisis reporter, is being held hostage in a tent in Pioneer Square and that the terrorists have been placed as appointees of some Dubai investors who have made out poorly in their attempt to bail out the US-run CitiBank.
Yeah so I'm stuck here in my apartment with my internet connection and my newly-procured-but-as-yet unused ice ax waiting for some bad guys or something. I figure I've got an advantage over bad guys 'cause I'm expecting them and also we're not on the first floor. If it's the storm we should worry about, well, we live in the heart of industrial Ballard, for chrissakes, there's not a tall tree in sight to fall on our building and if there's a massive flood I will hack my desk chair apart and build a raft. Really quickly.
Things have been pretty calm around the city these days. It seems like the perfect time for a natural disaster or a monster or a plague or a trade war-turned-violent. Nefarious events always arise from Mayberry scenes. They descend on unwitting "good" people who take for granted the lack of horror around them. They start with small electrical occurrences.
The key is to be prepared. Don't be one of the unwitting.
Monday
Quarantine
You've heard how students in nursing school will become slightly hypochondriacal*, diagnosing themselves with this and that illness as they learn symptoms of various diseases. They read about renal failure and suddenly one side of the lower back is sore. It's silly. Until it happens to you. Or something like it.
When you work in Human Resources you hear a lot about "Wellness." How can we keep the workforce from making each other sick?
Good God forbid a pandemic flu!
If you're sick, stay home. We must combat presenteeism.
It's having a nurse effect on me. I had a flu shot, I take multi-vitamins, I exercise, I eat salad for lunch almost every day, but I take inventory of my daily life and instead of seeing the forces in it that are good I see all of the threats of illness lurking like shadows.
In the office there is a quiet soundtrack of sneezes and coughs that rattle like distant gunfire on a battlefield. On the bus- Oh! The bus. Wet, steamy, sickly bodies cramp like fetid sardines into a tin can that crawls the streets like a streetcar named MRSA infection. Today a man with a craggy face, shabby clothes, and a gargly cough sat two feet from me. So violent were his coughs that at one point he opened up his backpack to heave his mucosal spasms into it. Nice. All I could think about was that WASPy-looking guy who knowingly boarded a commercial plane with Tuberculosis months ago.
Yesterday at the gym I was cruising along, minding my own business and trying not to look at the clock when a 40-something guy with a Randy Johnson haircut took the treadmill next to mine. Within minutes he was sweating and his B.O. was the worst I have ever smelled. I tried breathing in the opposite direction, but the stench permeated all of the air available to my suffering lungs. Relax, I told myself, You reek, too. But this was of no comfort because my mind was spinning. Surely this man's acutely offensive B.O., pheromone-free, is his body's way of telling him that he is ill and should not be exercising. He is so ill that his pores are manufacturing a skunk-like scent as a warning to passers-by that says: This man is an epidemic waiting to happen and if you have any salt you should throw it on him to see if he melts... or something. I didn't have any salt so I switched machines to get away from Bubonic Bob.
I've got a small sniffle and my allergies are acting up, but so far I've been able to chalk my seemingly disease-dome-like existence up to neurosis. If I should disappear for too long, though, call my mom, because it means I'm laid up somewhere, a consumptive wretch with dysentery to boot, and there's a pretty penny in life insurance coming her way.
Curses ye infectious mobs.
*I looked it up 'cause I thought it would be hypochondriatic but it's not so shut it.
When you work in Human Resources you hear a lot about "Wellness." How can we keep the workforce from making each other sick?
Good God forbid a pandemic flu!
If you're sick, stay home. We must combat presenteeism.
It's having a nurse effect on me. I had a flu shot, I take multi-vitamins, I exercise, I eat salad for lunch almost every day, but I take inventory of my daily life and instead of seeing the forces in it that are good I see all of the threats of illness lurking like shadows.
In the office there is a quiet soundtrack of sneezes and coughs that rattle like distant gunfire on a battlefield. On the bus- Oh! The bus. Wet, steamy, sickly bodies cramp like fetid sardines into a tin can that crawls the streets like a streetcar named MRSA infection. Today a man with a craggy face, shabby clothes, and a gargly cough sat two feet from me. So violent were his coughs that at one point he opened up his backpack to heave his mucosal spasms into it. Nice. All I could think about was that WASPy-looking guy who knowingly boarded a commercial plane with Tuberculosis months ago.
Yesterday at the gym I was cruising along, minding my own business and trying not to look at the clock when a 40-something guy with a Randy Johnson haircut took the treadmill next to mine. Within minutes he was sweating and his B.O. was the worst I have ever smelled. I tried breathing in the opposite direction, but the stench permeated all of the air available to my suffering lungs. Relax, I told myself, You reek, too. But this was of no comfort because my mind was spinning. Surely this man's acutely offensive B.O., pheromone-free, is his body's way of telling him that he is ill and should not be exercising. He is so ill that his pores are manufacturing a skunk-like scent as a warning to passers-by that says: This man is an epidemic waiting to happen and if you have any salt you should throw it on him to see if he melts... or something. I didn't have any salt so I switched machines to get away from Bubonic Bob.
I've got a small sniffle and my allergies are acting up, but so far I've been able to chalk my seemingly disease-dome-like existence up to neurosis. If I should disappear for too long, though, call my mom, because it means I'm laid up somewhere, a consumptive wretch with dysentery to boot, and there's a pretty penny in life insurance coming her way.
Curses ye infectious mobs.
*I looked it up 'cause I thought it would be hypochondriatic but it's not so shut it.
From space, astronauts can see people making love as a tiny speck of light. Not light, exactly, but a glow that could be mistaken for light- a coital radiance that takes generations to pour like honey through the darkness to the astronaut's eyes.
In about one and a half centuries- after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs- metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible.
The glow is born from thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leaves on the eye after you turn away from it.
-from Everything is Illuminated
My grandpa is probably dying. It's pretty sad, and I'm broken up for my mom because having your dad die is guaranteed to mess with your head. He has been in a lot of pain lately, though, and his health has rendered him pretty much a prisoner in his own home. Recently he told Mom, "As long as I can watch the football games and go to church I will be happy. I don't need much more than that."
After my grandma died, almost seven years ago, Grandpa has been a lesson in peace with death. He has waited patiently. Often he attends multiple funerals for friends in a single week. Each Christmas he assumes it will be his last with us. He takes great pains to impart his wisdom on his children and his grandchildren, and he has faced the indignities of a failing body with acceptance and honor.
I'm worried about all of the things people worry about at a time like this. How will the children deal with the material things? Will we still have a reason to gather the cousins and keep in touch without the patriarch? I didn't do enough to keep a relationship with Grandpa Babe in recent years. Dude, I haven't even seen him in a year. So many people will be so upset and it will disrupt so many lives.
This whole thing's been kind of rockin' my world today, so when I got home I attempted to do something mindless. I went into my bathroom and stripped my toenails of their polish, wishing to change its color to red, as I listened to the radio. A Canadian broadcaster was interviewing a Pakistani reporter about the return of Benazir Bhutto to her country from a long, self-imposed exile. There was something confusing about the story; the reporter was talking about "a hundred people" and blasts and carrying bodies. I pieced together that explosions occurred near Bhutto's motorcade. Fifty people are dead, and more are expected to die within the night.
We hear stories like this all the time. Cars explode in Fallujah. Planes crash in Greece, everyone on board flash-frozen to death. These stories are sad, and I think to myself, "Those poor people." I think briefly of children left behind. What I don't ruminate on is the profound effect a single stranger's death has on so many people.
Grandpa Babe has lived a long, full life. He is ready, and maybe even longing, to receive his last rites and, as he fully expects, join my grandma with God. It's so painfully beautiful, and the selfish part of his family and friends will never feel it's the right time, but they will be glad that they had him around for 85 years and that his pain is through. My mother will grieve him for the rest of her life, as will her sisters and brother, and I will think romantically/philosophically on the implications of his death for my future as the child of, if I'm lucky, one-day elderly parents. These sentiments and mental processes will be mirrored in three other families, and among Babe's friends.
Just imagine how many people mourn the loss of 50 victims of an explosion in a political rally. Imagine the pain, and tears, and violence that follows such a tragedy. Fifty bodies is a number. One person is a number, and it doesn't really matter unless it's your person. If you think, though, about just one of those fifty Pakistani people who died today, who woke up this morning and kissed his wife and head out to the streets of Karachi to celebrate the return of a political hero, you can just start to get a winking feeling of what it's like today for thirty people who knew him. And thirty people who knew his friend, who also died in the parade. And thirty people who knew 48 other people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they are dead.
But before that, they were alive. Each on his or her own caused joy and pain and made love and cried out to their wives in Urdu that "Oh. God. That feels. So great!" Each one was responsible for thousands of decisions that influenced the lives of others in thousands of ways and so much minutiae resulted from so many individually unimportant people. And they are just one of billions of individually unimportant people who were on Earth this morning, and one of probably trillions of people who will ever be on Earth. And one just doesn't matter so much, or even a hundred or three thousand, unless they matter to you. What I'm tryin' to tell you, anxiously inarticulate though I may be, is that everyone matters immensely.
And I'm so happy to be alive.
In about one and a half centuries- after the lovers who made the glow will have long since been laid permanently on their backs- metropolises will be seen from space. They will glow all year. Smaller cities will also be seen, but with great difficulty. Shtetls will be virtually impossible to spot. Individual couples, invisible.
The glow is born from thousands of loves: newlyweds and teenagers who spark like lighters out of butane, pairs of men who burn fast and bright, pairs of women who illuminate for hours with soft multiple glows, orgies like rock and flint toys sold at festivals, couples trying unsuccessfully to have children who burn their frustrated image on the continent like the bloom a bright light leaves on the eye after you turn away from it.
-from Everything is Illuminated
My grandpa is probably dying. It's pretty sad, and I'm broken up for my mom because having your dad die is guaranteed to mess with your head. He has been in a lot of pain lately, though, and his health has rendered him pretty much a prisoner in his own home. Recently he told Mom, "As long as I can watch the football games and go to church I will be happy. I don't need much more than that."
After my grandma died, almost seven years ago, Grandpa has been a lesson in peace with death. He has waited patiently. Often he attends multiple funerals for friends in a single week. Each Christmas he assumes it will be his last with us. He takes great pains to impart his wisdom on his children and his grandchildren, and he has faced the indignities of a failing body with acceptance and honor.
I'm worried about all of the things people worry about at a time like this. How will the children deal with the material things? Will we still have a reason to gather the cousins and keep in touch without the patriarch? I didn't do enough to keep a relationship with Grandpa Babe in recent years. Dude, I haven't even seen him in a year. So many people will be so upset and it will disrupt so many lives.
This whole thing's been kind of rockin' my world today, so when I got home I attempted to do something mindless. I went into my bathroom and stripped my toenails of their polish, wishing to change its color to red, as I listened to the radio. A Canadian broadcaster was interviewing a Pakistani reporter about the return of Benazir Bhutto to her country from a long, self-imposed exile. There was something confusing about the story; the reporter was talking about "a hundred people" and blasts and carrying bodies. I pieced together that explosions occurred near Bhutto's motorcade. Fifty people are dead, and more are expected to die within the night.
We hear stories like this all the time. Cars explode in Fallujah. Planes crash in Greece, everyone on board flash-frozen to death. These stories are sad, and I think to myself, "Those poor people." I think briefly of children left behind. What I don't ruminate on is the profound effect a single stranger's death has on so many people.
Grandpa Babe has lived a long, full life. He is ready, and maybe even longing, to receive his last rites and, as he fully expects, join my grandma with God. It's so painfully beautiful, and the selfish part of his family and friends will never feel it's the right time, but they will be glad that they had him around for 85 years and that his pain is through. My mother will grieve him for the rest of her life, as will her sisters and brother, and I will think romantically/philosophically on the implications of his death for my future as the child of, if I'm lucky, one-day elderly parents. These sentiments and mental processes will be mirrored in three other families, and among Babe's friends.
Just imagine how many people mourn the loss of 50 victims of an explosion in a political rally. Imagine the pain, and tears, and violence that follows such a tragedy. Fifty bodies is a number. One person is a number, and it doesn't really matter unless it's your person. If you think, though, about just one of those fifty Pakistani people who died today, who woke up this morning and kissed his wife and head out to the streets of Karachi to celebrate the return of a political hero, you can just start to get a winking feeling of what it's like today for thirty people who knew him. And thirty people who knew his friend, who also died in the parade. And thirty people who knew 48 other people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. And they are dead.
But before that, they were alive. Each on his or her own caused joy and pain and made love and cried out to their wives in Urdu that "Oh. God. That feels. So great!" Each one was responsible for thousands of decisions that influenced the lives of others in thousands of ways and so much minutiae resulted from so many individually unimportant people. And they are just one of billions of individually unimportant people who were on Earth this morning, and one of probably trillions of people who will ever be on Earth. And one just doesn't matter so much, or even a hundred or three thousand, unless they matter to you. What I'm tryin' to tell you, anxiously inarticulate though I may be, is that everyone matters immensely.
And I'm so happy to be alive.
This is really unpleasant
So don't say I didn't warn you. Really, if you want to respect me as a lady you will not read this. I can't respect myself as a lady having lived it. Those of you who don't care, or who think the city is glamorous, ought to read on to learn it's not.
_______________________________________________
Last night, or early this morning, rather, Deo's closet fell apart. Everything on the rack and her shelf just came crashing down as she slept soundly. Apparently she screamed when it happened, but I didn't hear because I learned to tune out loud noises when I lived on First Hill. She came out and let me know what happened because surely her scream would have woken me. I offered to help in the rather pathetic way that a person jolted awake from REM sleep offers to do anything. She said she'd deal with it in the morning. Whatever. Deo's room is destroyed; no biggie. I went back to sleep and woke up at six fairly well-rested.
This unusual occurrence should have served as an omen.
I got ready for work and hit the bus like usual. My route is such that I have to transfer downtown and wait about ten minutes for the second bus that takes me to work. The transfer stop is a crowded one, buses come every minute and people are in and out of 'em in a constant stream. My stop is also a popular hang out for homeless people or all-night drunks looking for a morning cigarette.
This morning I was particularly engrossed in my book, so I took a seat on one of the benches. The woman to my left was sucking down a Camel Light, but I was downwind of her so I didn't get too much of the stench. The man to my right looked like a freaky mannequin model of Crackheadedness. His skin was the dark tan of the Summer Homeless. His hair was long and scraggly and covered with a baseball cap. He wore a Starter jacket, dirty jean shorts and black worker's boots. His face was so motionless, staring as he was at a distant point across the street, that it reminded me of a British guard at Buckingham Palace.
After staring (probably rudely) at him for a moment I looked back down at my book. A moment later I smelled the unmistakable stench of shit. Sometimes you think something smells like poo, but it's really just old garbage or something. This waft of air was gaggingly and definitely the odor of feces. I'm a big baby so I'm sure my face contorted in disgust and I put my hand to my nose so that I could smell my lotion. I looked left and I looked right. Cigarette lady had been replaced by a small and stylish Asian girl whose head was turned away from the shit smell. Mannequin Man was still staring at exactly the same place he had been when last I ogled him.
I couldn't take the smell so I stood up and walked down the block fifteen or twenty feet. When I seemed to be free of the nauseating stench I turned to look back for its source. I saw nothing. Then- and I'm not kidding and I'm getting goosebumps and chills just thinking about it- Mannequin Man stood sudenly and jaywalked across the street. Diarrhea dripped from the depths of his shorts on down his legs and onto his boots. Yeah; he just sat there on the bus stop bench and shit himself without moving a muscle and then got up and walked across the street.
One: I'm never sitting on a public bench again
Two: I almost vomited at the sight of this so my protest at public defecation is a little hypocritical
Three: B. used to tell me about this man in Tacoma who urinated and defecated on public benches so often that the city had a budget in place for cleaning up after him. That story used to make me laugh. Now it makes me want to cry.
Four: If someone got sprayed by this man's dirty, dirty D and he has hepatitis they might contract the disease. This is highly unlikely, I know, but a threat nevertheless.
I felt sick all morning at work. Moms deal with little kids crapping themselves all the time, I told myself, so why am I being so fussy? My old boss told me that he was running around Greenlake one day when a girl ahead of him, "Eliminated herself." That's Dave speak for crapping one's pants. She was freaking out, so he took his shirt off and gave it to her to tie around her waist. Then she disappeared into the bathroom and he didn't wait for her to come out because she was probably too embarrassed to face him. When I heard that story I felt sorry for the girl.
My old track coach told me that at one of his high school state track meets, the boy who would go on to win the 800 meter race shat himself in his tiny track short during the final 150 meters. He just kept running as fast as he could until he won the race, at which point he promptly disappeared from the field. I felt sorry for that guy slash awkward to have that conversation with my high school track coach.
I did not feel sorry for the guy at the bus stop. I feel violated by him. Drew told me recently that one of her coworkers had to jump over a pool of Diarrhea at the hospital and was rather traumatized by the experience and did not come to work the next day, so I know I'm not the only fussy person. Others at the bus stop this morning, when we collectively witnessed Cracky the Crapper walk away all soiled in shit, gaped in horror and moved quickly from the scene. We exchanged looks, but in the Seattle style of polite strangeness did not utter words to each other about the quiet scene that had just unfolded. Eventually, we knew, the owner of the Specter Sports Bar would come along and realize there was a puddle of poo near the door of his establishment and hose it down so as not to deter customers. It probably happens all the time.
If I were you, reader, I would not believe this story. When I recount my many run-ins with the druggy members of society people generally cannot relate other than with one or two experiences. Most likely I am subject to frequent encounters because I utilize public transportation and spend unusually large amounts of time at the $186 million homeless shelter Seattle calls a library. I assure you, though, that this happened today and it happens often... In other places... When I'm pleasantly not near.
I can't really make any conclusions or policy-minded suggestions that are not mildly hysterical at this point, but you there in your suburban stupors, the rumors are true. The cities are full of drug addicts and filthy benches and the buses smell like B.O. on a good day and the bus stops smell like shit on a regular one. Today I want nothing more than to be an ignorant Bellinghamian slight-hippie again.
_______________________________________________
Last night, or early this morning, rather, Deo's closet fell apart. Everything on the rack and her shelf just came crashing down as she slept soundly. Apparently she screamed when it happened, but I didn't hear because I learned to tune out loud noises when I lived on First Hill. She came out and let me know what happened because surely her scream would have woken me. I offered to help in the rather pathetic way that a person jolted awake from REM sleep offers to do anything. She said she'd deal with it in the morning. Whatever. Deo's room is destroyed; no biggie. I went back to sleep and woke up at six fairly well-rested.
This unusual occurrence should have served as an omen.
I got ready for work and hit the bus like usual. My route is such that I have to transfer downtown and wait about ten minutes for the second bus that takes me to work. The transfer stop is a crowded one, buses come every minute and people are in and out of 'em in a constant stream. My stop is also a popular hang out for homeless people or all-night drunks looking for a morning cigarette.
This morning I was particularly engrossed in my book, so I took a seat on one of the benches. The woman to my left was sucking down a Camel Light, but I was downwind of her so I didn't get too much of the stench. The man to my right looked like a freaky mannequin model of Crackheadedness. His skin was the dark tan of the Summer Homeless. His hair was long and scraggly and covered with a baseball cap. He wore a Starter jacket, dirty jean shorts and black worker's boots. His face was so motionless, staring as he was at a distant point across the street, that it reminded me of a British guard at Buckingham Palace.
After staring (probably rudely) at him for a moment I looked back down at my book. A moment later I smelled the unmistakable stench of shit. Sometimes you think something smells like poo, but it's really just old garbage or something. This waft of air was gaggingly and definitely the odor of feces. I'm a big baby so I'm sure my face contorted in disgust and I put my hand to my nose so that I could smell my lotion. I looked left and I looked right. Cigarette lady had been replaced by a small and stylish Asian girl whose head was turned away from the shit smell. Mannequin Man was still staring at exactly the same place he had been when last I ogled him.
I couldn't take the smell so I stood up and walked down the block fifteen or twenty feet. When I seemed to be free of the nauseating stench I turned to look back for its source. I saw nothing. Then- and I'm not kidding and I'm getting goosebumps and chills just thinking about it- Mannequin Man stood sudenly and jaywalked across the street. Diarrhea dripped from the depths of his shorts on down his legs and onto his boots. Yeah; he just sat there on the bus stop bench and shit himself without moving a muscle and then got up and walked across the street.
One: I'm never sitting on a public bench again
Two: I almost vomited at the sight of this so my protest at public defecation is a little hypocritical
Three: B. used to tell me about this man in Tacoma who urinated and defecated on public benches so often that the city had a budget in place for cleaning up after him. That story used to make me laugh. Now it makes me want to cry.
Four: If someone got sprayed by this man's dirty, dirty D and he has hepatitis they might contract the disease. This is highly unlikely, I know, but a threat nevertheless.
I felt sick all morning at work. Moms deal with little kids crapping themselves all the time, I told myself, so why am I being so fussy? My old boss told me that he was running around Greenlake one day when a girl ahead of him, "Eliminated herself." That's Dave speak for crapping one's pants. She was freaking out, so he took his shirt off and gave it to her to tie around her waist. Then she disappeared into the bathroom and he didn't wait for her to come out because she was probably too embarrassed to face him. When I heard that story I felt sorry for the girl.
My old track coach told me that at one of his high school state track meets, the boy who would go on to win the 800 meter race shat himself in his tiny track short during the final 150 meters. He just kept running as fast as he could until he won the race, at which point he promptly disappeared from the field. I felt sorry for that guy slash awkward to have that conversation with my high school track coach.
I did not feel sorry for the guy at the bus stop. I feel violated by him. Drew told me recently that one of her coworkers had to jump over a pool of Diarrhea at the hospital and was rather traumatized by the experience and did not come to work the next day, so I know I'm not the only fussy person. Others at the bus stop this morning, when we collectively witnessed Cracky the Crapper walk away all soiled in shit, gaped in horror and moved quickly from the scene. We exchanged looks, but in the Seattle style of polite strangeness did not utter words to each other about the quiet scene that had just unfolded. Eventually, we knew, the owner of the Specter Sports Bar would come along and realize there was a puddle of poo near the door of his establishment and hose it down so as not to deter customers. It probably happens all the time.
If I were you, reader, I would not believe this story. When I recount my many run-ins with the druggy members of society people generally cannot relate other than with one or two experiences. Most likely I am subject to frequent encounters because I utilize public transportation and spend unusually large amounts of time at the $186 million homeless shelter Seattle calls a library. I assure you, though, that this happened today and it happens often... In other places... When I'm pleasantly not near.
I can't really make any conclusions or policy-minded suggestions that are not mildly hysterical at this point, but you there in your suburban stupors, the rumors are true. The cities are full of drug addicts and filthy benches and the buses smell like B.O. on a good day and the bus stops smell like shit on a regular one. Today I want nothing more than to be an ignorant Bellinghamian slight-hippie again.
Toe Cleavage
Last weekend I showed up at Erin's house all dolled up to go dancing*. "Whoa you look really good," said Erin.
"Thanks," I said. "I tried." I pulled out some rarely-worn heels that would complete the look once we left for the night. "Those are cute," said Erin's friend Nicole.
"Yeah, thanks. I like your shoes, too," I told her.
"Thanks," she said. "I love 'em but I have toe cleavage in them. I hate that."
"Ooh, me too," said Karen.
"You guys- what the hell? Toe cleavage?" I asked them. "What the hell is toe cleavage?"
"It's when your toe cracks show in your shoes," said Nicole.
"Uhh, are you joking?"
They weren't joking. I just looked "toe cleavage" up on Wikipedia. It's defined there as "The partial exposure of a woman's toes in shoes that are cut low enough at the vamp. Low cut shoes reveal toe cleavage similar to how low cut tops reveal breast cleavage. It is also often referred to as "toe squish" by teens."
In case you're as clueless as I was:
No toe cleavage
Toe cleavage
I stay abreast of most common style terms. I know what "muffin top" is, and "Oprah Arms." Toe cleavage, though, has taken me entirely by surprise.
I suppose I ought to be excited by this. After all, it's about as close to any kind of cleavage I'm ever going to get.
Really, though. I understand indulging ourselves in silly things that don't matter. But fucking toe cleavage? Nicole hates it. But Manolo Blahnik, Shoe Wizard, has said of toe cleavage that it is "a very important part of the sexuality of the shoe," and that the secret is to "only show the first two cracks."
Lord help me. I don't wanna live in a world where George Bush is leader of the Western World. I don't wanna live in a world where Ronald McDonald is more widely recognized than Gandhi. All that aside, I don't wanna live in a world where, when I put on uncomfortable shoes because they supposedly make my legs look longer or whatever, I have to worry how many cracks, if any, between my toes are showing. Maybe we should just decide that toe cleavage is unequivocally bad and when we circumcise young boys, we can web young girls' feet. What the hell. It's better than genital mutilation.
It's possible I'm channeling a 65 year-old man, but the concept of toe cleavage is just too much for me. If you see me around town and my third and fourth cracks are showing, cut me some slack. I'm from Montana.
_____________________________________________
*Shoot me in the face.
Girls
2005
There is a mysterious girl in this class. She sits in the front, always. Her hair is mouse brown and she parts it in the middle 'til it reaches her forehead where unstyled bangs fall exactly to the top of her eyebrows.
Her eyes are ever downcast, even when she looks toward the overhead her eyes appear lowered. She has a cute little nose, well-defined cheekbones that sit high on her taut face, and lips that are ever-pursed. I've been sitting across from her for two months, twice weekly for two hours and I've yet to see her smile.
Every day she wears shirts with modest necklines, jeans, and hiking boots that clearly have yet to be hiked in.
I'm baffled by her unwavering attention for Washington State and local politics. I imagine her poring over the reading the night before class. I imagine she took great concern in studying for the midterm, though the questions were handed out in the days prior to the exam. No, she's not so mysterious. I'm usually right about these things.
She's pretty.
2006
In Ireland, you remember, we stopped at a small roadside café as we were tooling toward Galway. A twenty-something, full-figured, busty woman made us fried chicken. Ebony hair fell to her shoulders in ringlets that framed the creamy complexion of her face. As she cooked our lunch she chatted en brogue with an old man, presumably a resident of this small town. Her laughter was ebullient as she made her way around the little kitchen of the tiny café.
When we got back to the car John sighed, smiled, and said, "That was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
That moment I learned my brother is so dear.
2007
There's a girl I've seen about town twice now. The first time I saw her was early morning (7:30 am) on a sunny July day. I was on the bus, which waited for a stoplight. On the opposite side of the street a small crowd waited for the crosswalk. One young woman stood among them. She had headphones on and she was dancing in place. She was short- maybe 5'3"- and round as an apple. Her skin was a caramel brown and her hair stood out six inches in all directions, all afroed but the front section, which was held down with a bright blue barrette. She danced un-self-consciously and deliberately. The movements of her short arms were more furtive than graceful, but stylish still. I watched her intently in the moments until the light changed, then she crossed the street with the crowd and my bus moved along to infinitely more stoplights.
I saw her again a few days- or maybe it was weeks- later. I was walking around Greenlake with a friend on a warm evening. Ahead of us a girl on roller skates moved in rhythm, slower than an old woman with a walker. Long camo shorts covered her legs and an olive green tank top hugged the many curves of her torso. A bandana flattened her rebellious hair. Her arms swished alternately up and down in front of her chest. One knee would dip in front of her, and her head would loll to look at the ground, then she'd straighten her leg and her face would pop up. The other knee would drop with her body, her spirit momentarily prostrate. Up she'd come again, then her arms would straighten out at her sides and she'd spin slowly all the way around.
"That girl sure marches to her own beat," my companion observed.
2007
I wish I were an artist. I wish that at age 16 I'd begun weaving a tapestry on a loom to express my relationship with God. At 16, those first threads would express conviction, adoration. They'd tuck neatly in and out of each other. The color-scheme would be pleasant and orderly. At 19, 20, the yarn would fray, showing growing doubt and concern. At 21 the tapestry would be gray with total disbelief, anguish.
Now my weaving would be bright and colorful, a visceral representation of my understanding of harmony and awe at the seemingly perfect symbiotic relationships between things, people.
Oh! To be a modern-day Penelope. Instead I fill these little paper pages with self-serving thoughts. How lovely to store your secrets in knots of thread.
There is a mysterious girl in this class. She sits in the front, always. Her hair is mouse brown and she parts it in the middle 'til it reaches her forehead where unstyled bangs fall exactly to the top of her eyebrows.
Her eyes are ever downcast, even when she looks toward the overhead her eyes appear lowered. She has a cute little nose, well-defined cheekbones that sit high on her taut face, and lips that are ever-pursed. I've been sitting across from her for two months, twice weekly for two hours and I've yet to see her smile.
Every day she wears shirts with modest necklines, jeans, and hiking boots that clearly have yet to be hiked in.
I'm baffled by her unwavering attention for Washington State and local politics. I imagine her poring over the reading the night before class. I imagine she took great concern in studying for the midterm, though the questions were handed out in the days prior to the exam. No, she's not so mysterious. I'm usually right about these things.
She's pretty.
2006
In Ireland, you remember, we stopped at a small roadside café as we were tooling toward Galway. A twenty-something, full-figured, busty woman made us fried chicken. Ebony hair fell to her shoulders in ringlets that framed the creamy complexion of her face. As she cooked our lunch she chatted en brogue with an old man, presumably a resident of this small town. Her laughter was ebullient as she made her way around the little kitchen of the tiny café.
When we got back to the car John sighed, smiled, and said, "That was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."
That moment I learned my brother is so dear.
2007
There's a girl I've seen about town twice now. The first time I saw her was early morning (7:30 am) on a sunny July day. I was on the bus, which waited for a stoplight. On the opposite side of the street a small crowd waited for the crosswalk. One young woman stood among them. She had headphones on and she was dancing in place. She was short- maybe 5'3"- and round as an apple. Her skin was a caramel brown and her hair stood out six inches in all directions, all afroed but the front section, which was held down with a bright blue barrette. She danced un-self-consciously and deliberately. The movements of her short arms were more furtive than graceful, but stylish still. I watched her intently in the moments until the light changed, then she crossed the street with the crowd and my bus moved along to infinitely more stoplights.
I saw her again a few days- or maybe it was weeks- later. I was walking around Greenlake with a friend on a warm evening. Ahead of us a girl on roller skates moved in rhythm, slower than an old woman with a walker. Long camo shorts covered her legs and an olive green tank top hugged the many curves of her torso. A bandana flattened her rebellious hair. Her arms swished alternately up and down in front of her chest. One knee would dip in front of her, and her head would loll to look at the ground, then she'd straighten her leg and her face would pop up. The other knee would drop with her body, her spirit momentarily prostrate. Up she'd come again, then her arms would straighten out at her sides and she'd spin slowly all the way around.
"That girl sure marches to her own beat," my companion observed.
2007
I wish I were an artist. I wish that at age 16 I'd begun weaving a tapestry on a loom to express my relationship with God. At 16, those first threads would express conviction, adoration. They'd tuck neatly in and out of each other. The color-scheme would be pleasant and orderly. At 19, 20, the yarn would fray, showing growing doubt and concern. At 21 the tapestry would be gray with total disbelief, anguish.
Now my weaving would be bright and colorful, a visceral representation of my understanding of harmony and awe at the seemingly perfect symbiotic relationships between things, people.
Oh! To be a modern-day Penelope. Instead I fill these little paper pages with self-serving thoughts. How lovely to store your secrets in knots of thread.
Jesu ist ein Drohung als nationalische Sicherheit
Alternate titles:
"Jesus is a Terrorist"
Or, "I'm Glad to be an American Afforded the Rights of Blasphemy and to Make Assertions that My President is a Demagogue"
Or, "I've Inherited My Mother's Insomnia and This is What I Lay in Bed Thinking When the Apartment Managers' Loud Sex Keeps Me From Much-Needed Sleep"
____________________________________________________________________
I'm fairly certain that if Christ ever existed and if He were to come again, now would be a good time. Were He really to come again to judge the living and the dead, as both Christians and Muslims believe He will, and Jews anticipate He will come to do for the first time, it would be nice for Him to show up before we really betray H
is legacy and hack and bomb and bad-mouth each other to within a shred of dignity. When I was a kid I packed up all of my Barbies one day and stormed out of friend Connie's house because she insisted, eight-year-old Baptist zealot that she was, that "Catholics aren't Christians." Oh Lord I was pissed. "My mom is Catholic and you don't know what you're talking about," I said. Our doll-based friendship was slow to reconcile. This disagreement is analogous to the global discord among the monotheists. Please, God, if you're out there get this over with. It would be awfully nice for Jesus to show his face and settle this childish mess. If He did resurface, though, it would not be a bit surprising when the Bush Administration locked Him up in the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Who is this guy, inciting masses of seemingly unrelated individuals to fill the streets in chaotic demonstrations, law enforcement officials would ask themselves. How do we get people back at work, women back at malls, children back in schools? THIS IS NOT JUDGMENT DAY, they'd tell us, BUT IT'S ABOUT TO BE BLACK TUESDAY IF YOU ALL DON'T STOP EXALTING YOUR LORD AND GET BACK TO YOUR MINIVANS AND WAREHOUSE SHOPPING AND AMERICAN IDOL WATCHING. And who is this Hay-Zeuss character? Rural Americans are supposed to want to ship aliens OUT of the US. Where is his passport? The Department of Homeland Security would most assuredly not let the incarnation of Christ ignite the reliably unproblematic 30-something percent of Christian Americans to abandon their suburban routines. No; Christ Reincarnate would be branded a would-be terrorist by Cheney and locked up without warrant in a maximum security prison until He could be tortured into admission of His plans to end life as we know it, which is really the plan, right:
"Mr. President," an NSA official would report in hushed tones in the oval office, "This man says he plans to annex all countries into his 'Kingdom.' What's that? Yes, even the hungry African ones with nonexistent GDPs. I suggest we fry him before he escapes to a spider hole."
Yes, Jesus 2.0 would be a serious threat to global security. It's very likely the Vatican would not have the resources necessary to qualm the media frenzy surrounding speculation that Christ is risen. It's also likely, at least in the eyes of blasphemous cynics like myself, that Ol' Benedict would not be too keen on being unseated as the spiritual leader of all the Earth's Christians by some welfare baby born of a teenage mother who claims to be the New Holy Spirity..
"Ach, du bist nicht so schöen," he would say to the alleged Christ child.
(Rough translation, "Who the hell do you think you are? I've seen David Blaine perform way more impressive miracles than that. Go ahead: judge me. I dare you.") Then he'd take a trip to America and bless throngs of true believers and genuflecters in a nice, orderly fashion.
No, even though God is rumored to be waiting to reappear at the time when all the Earth is evil, the anti-Christ omnipresent, and pro-Israel movement at a crisis point, it would not be a sage move for Christ to show his face around here right now. Sorry, God, we're so busy narcissistically defending you point-counterpoint that we'd be forced to lock you up in a modern, metaphorical crucifixion process that would only serve to make you a martyr inspiring more widespread global violence. Best to stay seated at the right hand of the Father for now. Come again after the next Tsunami or Hiroshima or something, when we're all taking a breather for a moment of brotherly love.
"Jesus is a Terrorist"
Or, "I'm Glad to be an American Afforded the Rights of Blasphemy and to Make Assertions that My President is a Demagogue"
Or, "I've Inherited My Mother's Insomnia and This is What I Lay in Bed Thinking When the Apartment Managers' Loud Sex Keeps Me From Much-Needed Sleep"
____________________________________________________________________
I'm fairly certain that if Christ ever existed and if He were to come again, now would be a good time. Were He really to come again to judge the living and the dead, as both Christians and Muslims believe He will, and Jews anticipate He will come to do for the first time, it would be nice for Him to show up before we really betray H
is legacy and hack and bomb and bad-mouth each other to within a shred of dignity. When I was a kid I packed up all of my Barbies one day and stormed out of friend Connie's house because she insisted, eight-year-old Baptist zealot that she was, that "Catholics aren't Christians." Oh Lord I was pissed. "My mom is Catholic and you don't know what you're talking about," I said. Our doll-based friendship was slow to reconcile. This disagreement is analogous to the global discord among the monotheists. Please, God, if you're out there get this over with. It would be awfully nice for Jesus to show his face and settle this childish mess. If He did resurface, though, it would not be a bit surprising when the Bush Administration locked Him up in the prison at Guantanamo Bay.
Who is this guy, inciting masses of seemingly unrelated individuals to fill the streets in chaotic demonstrations, law enforcement officials would ask themselves. How do we get people back at work, women back at malls, children back in schools? THIS IS NOT JUDGMENT DAY, they'd tell us, BUT IT'S ABOUT TO BE BLACK TUESDAY IF YOU ALL DON'T STOP EXALTING YOUR LORD AND GET BACK TO YOUR MINIVANS AND WAREHOUSE SHOPPING AND AMERICAN IDOL WATCHING. And who is this Hay-Zeuss character? Rural Americans are supposed to want to ship aliens OUT of the US. Where is his passport? The Department of Homeland Security would most assuredly not let the incarnation of Christ ignite the reliably unproblematic 30-something percent of Christian Americans to abandon their suburban routines. No; Christ Reincarnate would be branded a would-be terrorist by Cheney and locked up without warrant in a maximum security prison until He could be tortured into admission of His plans to end life as we know it, which is really the plan, right:
"Mr. President," an NSA official would report in hushed tones in the oval office, "This man says he plans to annex all countries into his 'Kingdom.' What's that? Yes, even the hungry African ones with nonexistent GDPs. I suggest we fry him before he escapes to a spider hole."
Yes, Jesus 2.0 would be a serious threat to global security. It's very likely the Vatican would not have the resources necessary to qualm the media frenzy surrounding speculation that Christ is risen. It's also likely, at least in the eyes of blasphemous cynics like myself, that Ol' Benedict would not be too keen on being unseated as the spiritual leader of all the Earth's Christians by some welfare baby born of a teenage mother who claims to be the New Holy Spirity..
"Ach, du bist nicht so schöen," he would say to the alleged Christ child.
(Rough translation, "Who the hell do you think you are? I've seen David Blaine perform way more impressive miracles than that. Go ahead: judge me. I dare you.") Then he'd take a trip to America and bless throngs of true believers and genuflecters in a nice, orderly fashion.
No, even though God is rumored to be waiting to reappear at the time when all the Earth is evil, the anti-Christ omnipresent, and pro-Israel movement at a crisis point, it would not be a sage move for Christ to show his face around here right now. Sorry, God, we're so busy narcissistically defending you point-counterpoint that we'd be forced to lock you up in a modern, metaphorical crucifixion process that would only serve to make you a martyr inspiring more widespread global violence. Best to stay seated at the right hand of the Father for now. Come again after the next Tsunami or Hiroshima or something, when we're all taking a breather for a moment of brotherly love.
Necessary Scatology
And I'm really very sorry for putting you through this. But it's the sort of uncomfortable conversation that has to happen- like discussing birds and bees with your mom or dad. Set aside your squeamishness and have the maturity to deal with the New American Plague:
Did you know that one in five adult Americans has irritable bowel syndrome? You probably didn't. It's not something people like to talk about in mixed company, or in the office, or at church. Discussing the details of diarrhea and the like is as taboo as openly discussing the bloody process of childbirth. Such vivid realities are best left in the mythic, solitary suffering moments they occur in. But just as every child is a secret reminder to someone whose been there that a belly swelled and flesh was torn, irritable bowel syndrome is an elephant in the room that's still invisible to most people- unless they are among the twenty percent of the population that suffers it. It's a modern-day dysentery. A secret pandemic condition that millions have but everyone else ignores.
Rarely does someone call her peer to say, "I'm sorry, Sheila. I can't pick up your kids for soccer practice this afternoon like we planned. And, actually, well, I feel really horrible asking you this, but is there any way that you could pick up Leon? See I just can't ride in the car because I've got these horrible runs and I can't really be away from a toilet for more than a few minutes. I've taken some Pepto Bismol, but nothing really helps."
Twice as many American women as men suffer IBS. Fifty percent of the people affected develop symptoms in their twenties.
It would be horrible. How could you ever plan a backpacking trip? The few days leading up to the trek, a person would be worried that IBS would show up on the trail like a cold sore on the face of a movie star the day of her close-up kissing scene. There you'd be, hiking along, lugging your huge pack, washing dinner plates in dirt and filtering the parasitic creek water and incapable of digesting anything. Your stomach contracts and you're sweating and dehydrated trying to hike along and ignore the urgent need from within. And oh! Dear God, the horror of the privy. I've never actually been in one. Cast iron stomach of mine, and strength of will to match, I've always managed to avoid a trip to a privy on backpacking trips. The boys would come back bearing tales of outhouses holding the Devil's cauldron. Giant, man-eating arachnids lurk in the corners of the dark shithouse.
No; I will never go in a privy if I have to slit my very own throat on a pirate ship to avoid doing so. Capt. William Swashbuckle decrees anyone who soils his decks will walk the plank, and rather than face that fate I take my own life away from the macabre reality of the privy. The chances of that occurring will be even more dramatically low if I'm not suffering IBS.
Another, more plausible, threat is that you could be having dinner at your girlfriend's parents house for the first time and in the midst of a days-long battle against IBS. Her dad offers you a beer, and you don't want to seem uptight or like a person dealing with diarrhea, so you accept. Then they bring out some truly delicious, rich food, and you eat a healthy amount to be polite. A cold sweat comes over you and you realize you are not going to win a battle against your own body and excuse yourself. Stinking up the bathroom is better than having explosive diarrhea on the white-upholstered dining room chairs. IBS is a real bitch.
So, yeah, I'm scared of developing a shaky stomach. I feel like a ticking time bomb. Luckily my friends and I share an eighth-grade boy's interest in gastro-intestinal goings on. Deo and Drew to the rescue: a person can greatly reduce the statistically high chances of developing IBS by fortifying with psyllium. Psyllium is soluble and insoluble fiber with a texture like super-fine wood shavings, or tiny mouse hairs. Just a tablespoon and a half in eight ounces of water (swill while drinking so the fibers don't chunk up) three times a day and your likelihood of staving off chronic cramps and GI unpleasantries is rumored to soar.
This morning I went into the vitamin store to get a jar of my own psyllium. I thought it would be classier to get it at a supplement boutique than at a Rite Aid where it would be stocked next to cans of Ensure and packets of Metamucil. Because it's not a product exclusively aimed at geriatrics. No! It's a preventative supplement as intelligent a choice as Vitamin D or fish oil. There were no other customers in the store, but a very friendly sales person greeted me and I told her what I was looking for.
"Oh, I love that stuff," she said. "It's really important to stay regular."
"I'm regular!" I practically yelled back at her. "Uhh, but my roommate is a dietetics student and she is always telling me of the long-term health benefits of this stuff, and my other friend, who reads a lot about nutrition, swears by it. It's preventative." My face bore the look of someone who tells a drug store clerk she's buying the pregnancy test for a friend. Or this woman who would come weekly to the drive-in I schlepped burgers for in college, order truly obscene amounts of food, and explain to whoever served her that she was having a terrible week. It's cool, lady. I buy large cans of fiber and choke down water with the texture of wet paper so I won't have abnormal bloating and constipation/diarrhea for the rest of my life. Judge not, right?
In high school I babysat occasionally for parents at my church. The first time I sat for Oliver, age five, and Solveig, age one, their mother told me that Oliver needed to be in bed at eight and that "he needs to have a BM before he can go to sleep."
"Oh, okay, no problem. I'll make sure that happens," my reply.
As soon as she and the mister left I got on the phone immediately to my mother to find out what the hell a BM was.
"I don't know," she said. "Breast milk?"
"Very funny... I guess I'll ask him what it is."
Oliver didn't know. Over the evening I looked at the instructions list for medications BM might act as an acronym for. At some point it occurred to my mom and she called me, "Bowel movement."
"Ahhhhhhhh. Of course!" Should it have been obvious? Probably not. Only mothers and geriatricians are conditioned to think of the regularity of others' BMs. Thank God. So at bed time I sent Oliver in to poop or not to poop. I really wasn't interested, at five dollars an hour, in finding out what happened while Oliver was in the bathroom. He didn't update me. I put him to sleep with a story, shuddering at one more little death of a child girl's romantic vision of motherhood.
Because no matter how much you love someone, poop is never endearing. That's why I plan to keep where and when mine is produced under control to the fullest extent possible. That is why I bought psyllium.
Did you know that one in five adult Americans has irritable bowel syndrome? You probably didn't. It's not something people like to talk about in mixed company, or in the office, or at church. Discussing the details of diarrhea and the like is as taboo as openly discussing the bloody process of childbirth. Such vivid realities are best left in the mythic, solitary suffering moments they occur in. But just as every child is a secret reminder to someone whose been there that a belly swelled and flesh was torn, irritable bowel syndrome is an elephant in the room that's still invisible to most people- unless they are among the twenty percent of the population that suffers it. It's a modern-day dysentery. A secret pandemic condition that millions have but everyone else ignores.
Rarely does someone call her peer to say, "I'm sorry, Sheila. I can't pick up your kids for soccer practice this afternoon like we planned. And, actually, well, I feel really horrible asking you this, but is there any way that you could pick up Leon? See I just can't ride in the car because I've got these horrible runs and I can't really be away from a toilet for more than a few minutes. I've taken some Pepto Bismol, but nothing really helps."
Twice as many American women as men suffer IBS. Fifty percent of the people affected develop symptoms in their twenties.
It would be horrible. How could you ever plan a backpacking trip? The few days leading up to the trek, a person would be worried that IBS would show up on the trail like a cold sore on the face of a movie star the day of her close-up kissing scene. There you'd be, hiking along, lugging your huge pack, washing dinner plates in dirt and filtering the parasitic creek water and incapable of digesting anything. Your stomach contracts and you're sweating and dehydrated trying to hike along and ignore the urgent need from within. And oh! Dear God, the horror of the privy. I've never actually been in one. Cast iron stomach of mine, and strength of will to match, I've always managed to avoid a trip to a privy on backpacking trips. The boys would come back bearing tales of outhouses holding the Devil's cauldron. Giant, man-eating arachnids lurk in the corners of the dark shithouse.
No; I will never go in a privy if I have to slit my very own throat on a pirate ship to avoid doing so. Capt. William Swashbuckle decrees anyone who soils his decks will walk the plank, and rather than face that fate I take my own life away from the macabre reality of the privy. The chances of that occurring will be even more dramatically low if I'm not suffering IBS.
Another, more plausible, threat is that you could be having dinner at your girlfriend's parents house for the first time and in the midst of a days-long battle against IBS. Her dad offers you a beer, and you don't want to seem uptight or like a person dealing with diarrhea, so you accept. Then they bring out some truly delicious, rich food, and you eat a healthy amount to be polite. A cold sweat comes over you and you realize you are not going to win a battle against your own body and excuse yourself. Stinking up the bathroom is better than having explosive diarrhea on the white-upholstered dining room chairs. IBS is a real bitch.
So, yeah, I'm scared of developing a shaky stomach. I feel like a ticking time bomb. Luckily my friends and I share an eighth-grade boy's interest in gastro-intestinal goings on. Deo and Drew to the rescue: a person can greatly reduce the statistically high chances of developing IBS by fortifying with psyllium. Psyllium is soluble and insoluble fiber with a texture like super-fine wood shavings, or tiny mouse hairs. Just a tablespoon and a half in eight ounces of water (swill while drinking so the fibers don't chunk up) three times a day and your likelihood of staving off chronic cramps and GI unpleasantries is rumored to soar.
This morning I went into the vitamin store to get a jar of my own psyllium. I thought it would be classier to get it at a supplement boutique than at a Rite Aid where it would be stocked next to cans of Ensure and packets of Metamucil. Because it's not a product exclusively aimed at geriatrics. No! It's a preventative supplement as intelligent a choice as Vitamin D or fish oil. There were no other customers in the store, but a very friendly sales person greeted me and I told her what I was looking for.
"Oh, I love that stuff," she said. "It's really important to stay regular."
"I'm regular!" I practically yelled back at her. "Uhh, but my roommate is a dietetics student and she is always telling me of the long-term health benefits of this stuff, and my other friend, who reads a lot about nutrition, swears by it. It's preventative." My face bore the look of someone who tells a drug store clerk she's buying the pregnancy test for a friend. Or this woman who would come weekly to the drive-in I schlepped burgers for in college, order truly obscene amounts of food, and explain to whoever served her that she was having a terrible week. It's cool, lady. I buy large cans of fiber and choke down water with the texture of wet paper so I won't have abnormal bloating and constipation/diarrhea for the rest of my life. Judge not, right?
In high school I babysat occasionally for parents at my church. The first time I sat for Oliver, age five, and Solveig, age one, their mother told me that Oliver needed to be in bed at eight and that "he needs to have a BM before he can go to sleep."
"Oh, okay, no problem. I'll make sure that happens," my reply.
As soon as she and the mister left I got on the phone immediately to my mother to find out what the hell a BM was.
"I don't know," she said. "Breast milk?"
"Very funny... I guess I'll ask him what it is."
Oliver didn't know. Over the evening I looked at the instructions list for medications BM might act as an acronym for. At some point it occurred to my mom and she called me, "Bowel movement."
"Ahhhhhhhh. Of course!" Should it have been obvious? Probably not. Only mothers and geriatricians are conditioned to think of the regularity of others' BMs. Thank God. So at bed time I sent Oliver in to poop or not to poop. I really wasn't interested, at five dollars an hour, in finding out what happened while Oliver was in the bathroom. He didn't update me. I put him to sleep with a story, shuddering at one more little death of a child girl's romantic vision of motherhood.
Because no matter how much you love someone, poop is never endearing. That's why I plan to keep where and when mine is produced under control to the fullest extent possible. That is why I bought psyllium.
Your Boss Hates You
Over the past week NPR has run a couple of stories in the morning about the "Me Generation" entering the workforce. That's you, and me – we. Corporate culture, it seems, is not handling well the influx of 18 to 25 year old workers who, the stories say, require a constant stream of praise for even the most trivial of tasks to remain engaged at work. A steady income and benefits, it seems, are not enough to satisfy our consumptive tendencies. We, the members of the Me Generation, require recognition and to feel special to avoid dereliction of our duties.
The NPR reports were inspired by a recent Fortune cover story. I urge you to read this article if only for the hilarious hipster descriptions and iPod ownership stereotypes it relies on. Both the NPR and the Fortune reports assert that our generation is more concerned with what a company can do for us than the reverse, and it suggests that loyalty among young employees is low. One consultant interviewed for the NPR story suggested that for the young generation, in which every kid on every baseball team received a trophy, employers have to "Create systems that recognize and reward accomplishment. It doesn't necessarily have to be outstanding." Carrots are needed in as ready supply as the sticks that hold them.
If young workers feel demoralized or uninspired, these reports suggest, they will simply quit and move back home with mom and dad, the very people who have made them so needy and self-centered. One twenty-something author quoted in the Fortune piece claims that parents are thrilled when their kids come crawling back home, unemployed. "Our moms would love nothing more than to cook our favorite meatloaf," he says.
Really?
All of my friends are employed or in school. All of my friends have goals and a plan to reach them. My parents supported and encouraged me as a kid, and as a result I am a hard worker. Sure, they throw some money at me occasionally, but I pay all of my bills and secure my own housing and pay my own insurance. Most of my friends are in the same boat. Jane Bryant Quinn, the pop-culture financial guru, is constantly popping off about kids whose wallets are still tied inextricably to their parents'. It's true, many people our age still receive financial assistance from their parents. This has more to do with maintaining a lifestyle they are used to, and that their parents like to see them enjoy, though, than with complete fiscal incompetence run amok. Sure, debt is a growing concern among Americans, but it's one that spans the entire population, not young adults in particular.
What's particularly offensive about the Fortune article is the insinuation that kids would be drooling on themselves, flooding temp agencies with their marked incompetence, if it weren't for the assistance and pushiness of their parents. If anything, our generation is incredibly assertive. While a parent's connection may help you get a foot in the door somewhere, if you're lucky, this is no different from the way networking has worked since networking existed. The news pieces criticize young workers for complaining that their work bores them; older generations would have been glad to have a steady job, they insist. We are put through rigorous school and extra-curricular activities for twelve years without cease, and suddenly our employer expects us to happily perform data entry for a solid chunk of time every day?
I'd say the complaining employers are the ones who need to reexamine in that case.
I'm truly excited about the future of our culture. Ours is a generation that increasingly appreciates diversity; one that is creative; one that is technologically lightyears ahead of any that came before. My peers, as far as I can see, are not going to be moved by small recognition ceremonies where they receive coupons for free lattes. They are going to be inspired by challenging projects that test their capacities as creative thinkers. The antidote to the problem of engaging the "Me Generation" suggested by consulting firms cited in the news stories is as inappropriate as the assessment itself. We are not a helpless set of crybaby workers, we are simply more talented and educated than any workforce that has come before and the traditional climb-the-ladder process of corporate success, I predict, will cease to exist in the wake of a more lateral responsibility movement.
The NPR reports were inspired by a recent Fortune cover story. I urge you to read this article if only for the hilarious hipster descriptions and iPod ownership stereotypes it relies on. Both the NPR and the Fortune reports assert that our generation is more concerned with what a company can do for us than the reverse, and it suggests that loyalty among young employees is low. One consultant interviewed for the NPR story suggested that for the young generation, in which every kid on every baseball team received a trophy, employers have to "Create systems that recognize and reward accomplishment. It doesn't necessarily have to be outstanding." Carrots are needed in as ready supply as the sticks that hold them.
If young workers feel demoralized or uninspired, these reports suggest, they will simply quit and move back home with mom and dad, the very people who have made them so needy and self-centered. One twenty-something author quoted in the Fortune piece claims that parents are thrilled when their kids come crawling back home, unemployed. "Our moms would love nothing more than to cook our favorite meatloaf," he says.
Really?
All of my friends are employed or in school. All of my friends have goals and a plan to reach them. My parents supported and encouraged me as a kid, and as a result I am a hard worker. Sure, they throw some money at me occasionally, but I pay all of my bills and secure my own housing and pay my own insurance. Most of my friends are in the same boat. Jane Bryant Quinn, the pop-culture financial guru, is constantly popping off about kids whose wallets are still tied inextricably to their parents'. It's true, many people our age still receive financial assistance from their parents. This has more to do with maintaining a lifestyle they are used to, and that their parents like to see them enjoy, though, than with complete fiscal incompetence run amok. Sure, debt is a growing concern among Americans, but it's one that spans the entire population, not young adults in particular.
What's particularly offensive about the Fortune article is the insinuation that kids would be drooling on themselves, flooding temp agencies with their marked incompetence, if it weren't for the assistance and pushiness of their parents. If anything, our generation is incredibly assertive. While a parent's connection may help you get a foot in the door somewhere, if you're lucky, this is no different from the way networking has worked since networking existed. The news pieces criticize young workers for complaining that their work bores them; older generations would have been glad to have a steady job, they insist. We are put through rigorous school and extra-curricular activities for twelve years without cease, and suddenly our employer expects us to happily perform data entry for a solid chunk of time every day?
I'd say the complaining employers are the ones who need to reexamine in that case.
I'm truly excited about the future of our culture. Ours is a generation that increasingly appreciates diversity; one that is creative; one that is technologically lightyears ahead of any that came before. My peers, as far as I can see, are not going to be moved by small recognition ceremonies where they receive coupons for free lattes. They are going to be inspired by challenging projects that test their capacities as creative thinkers. The antidote to the problem of engaging the "Me Generation" suggested by consulting firms cited in the news stories is as inappropriate as the assessment itself. We are not a helpless set of crybaby workers, we are simply more talented and educated than any workforce that has come before and the traditional climb-the-ladder process of corporate success, I predict, will cease to exist in the wake of a more lateral responsibility movement.
Dear Gross Guy
Dude, what's your deal?
From the moment I sat down on the bus this morning until the time I stepped off you did not stop staring at me. Your eyes bore into me like lasers, and I was highly uncomfortable. Don't tell me you were "Struck by a thunderbolt" like you're the Michael Corleone to my Appolonia, 'cause you're not that smooth, and I'm not that special. I realize I was particularly radiant this morning. I was wearing a new(er) dress. I dried my hair rather than let the exhaust particulate-filled Seattle air do the job as I normally do. Overcompensating for the pimple on my chin, I even wore some make-up. So I appreciate that you noticed, but not that you stared.
Prudence dictates that it's perfectly acceptable, even polite, to make eye contact with a stranger. But when, for the entire duration of the ride from Ballard to Queen Anne, I can look over at you and guarantee your eyes would be fixed on me, a lesson in manners is called for. If you're so smitten with me then place one of those "I saw you" ads in The Stranger or something, but stop ogling me. Occasionally you would grin at me as though we were sharing some kind of secret. Get a life.
Yeah, there you were, gumming dried Cheerios one by one, perched on your dad's knee, staring at me. It was pretty gross, the way your whole hand goes in your mouth just to put a single Cheerio in there. You're not even my type. You've barely grown any hair and you have about as many teeth as a meth addict. Plus, I'm at least 22 years older than you. I have no interest in fulfilling your Older Woman fantasy.
"Ooh," you say, "I can't place a personals ad because I'm pre-verbal." Well, I'm really not interested in teaching you the ABCs. I bet you don't even have a job. Oh, and I can tell you didn't get a bath this morning. There's some Gerber dried on your cheek. It looks like vomit. That's disgusting. You are a little pig. If I catch you staring at me on the bus again like that I'm gonna spray you with mace.
Give it up, you greasy perv.
From the moment I sat down on the bus this morning until the time I stepped off you did not stop staring at me. Your eyes bore into me like lasers, and I was highly uncomfortable. Don't tell me you were "Struck by a thunderbolt" like you're the Michael Corleone to my Appolonia, 'cause you're not that smooth, and I'm not that special. I realize I was particularly radiant this morning. I was wearing a new(er) dress. I dried my hair rather than let the exhaust particulate-filled Seattle air do the job as I normally do. Overcompensating for the pimple on my chin, I even wore some make-up. So I appreciate that you noticed, but not that you stared.
Prudence dictates that it's perfectly acceptable, even polite, to make eye contact with a stranger. But when, for the entire duration of the ride from Ballard to Queen Anne, I can look over at you and guarantee your eyes would be fixed on me, a lesson in manners is called for. If you're so smitten with me then place one of those "I saw you" ads in The Stranger or something, but stop ogling me. Occasionally you would grin at me as though we were sharing some kind of secret. Get a life.
Yeah, there you were, gumming dried Cheerios one by one, perched on your dad's knee, staring at me. It was pretty gross, the way your whole hand goes in your mouth just to put a single Cheerio in there. You're not even my type. You've barely grown any hair and you have about as many teeth as a meth addict. Plus, I'm at least 22 years older than you. I have no interest in fulfilling your Older Woman fantasy.
"Ooh," you say, "I can't place a personals ad because I'm pre-verbal." Well, I'm really not interested in teaching you the ABCs. I bet you don't even have a job. Oh, and I can tell you didn't get a bath this morning. There's some Gerber dried on your cheek. It looks like vomit. That's disgusting. You are a little pig. If I catch you staring at me on the bus again like that I'm gonna spray you with mace.
Give it up, you greasy perv.
I call this one Madonna/Whore
It's incredible how you can be different things to different people. You could be the love of one man's life and an embarrassing mistake to another. You could be someone's craziest friend, and to another you might be the slow Wednesday night amigo. To your mother you might be a constant source of stress, and to your father, the reason for being (incredibly light!).
To one man you might be the unattainable- that gorgeous creature for whom he longs, and has for so long. He remembers all of the times he passed you in the hall this week. He thinks of you at night, of the way a piece of your hair is always falling over your eye, strands of it weaving with your long, delicate eyelashes. Some stupid joke you made in the elevator last Wednesday still makes him laugh out loud when he thinks of it in the shower on Saturday. Oh yes, you fantastic, gorgeous thing, if only you knew.
To another you are a passing thought. A distraction on the way to… what? Who cares? You're cute enough and amusing. Nothing serious. Just some chick who will end up a blip in the memory a few years from now. Time acceptably wasted. Conveniently cool with the non-commital gray area so many 20-somethings like to idle in and call it dating. A dot-dash, lingering little on the mind outside of meetings.
To one professor you might be the saving grace of the class. That student who writes thoughtful papers. The one who actually gets it. He saves your paper to grade last, hoping it will end a night of depressing critiques on a high note. You make reasoned points in class discussions. It's clear you've done the reading and synthesized it with the readings that came before. Without your presence the professor might be given to taking sips from his flask before class, moved by his utter loathing of the rest of the students, drones trying not to get called on for lack of preparation.
To another professor you are a nuisance. A brownnosing, simpering sycophant who embodies everything that is artificial and abhorrent. It's clear to him that you have no life since you must spend all of your time strategizing how to outwit your peers, as though class were a competition and not a conversation among intellectuals. He delights in marking up your verbose term papers, accusing you of masking lack of understanding with complicated sentences that serve no purpose other than self-aggrandization.
You can kill yourself trying to reinvent your persona, attempting to project the best possible version of yourself to as wide an audience as possible. But even if you captured the hearts of all Americans, there would still be a billion Brits and Bengalis and Bundesrepublik Deutschlanderins who don't give a rat's ass about you.
So don't sweat it, yo.
To one man you might be the unattainable- that gorgeous creature for whom he longs, and has for so long. He remembers all of the times he passed you in the hall this week. He thinks of you at night, of the way a piece of your hair is always falling over your eye, strands of it weaving with your long, delicate eyelashes. Some stupid joke you made in the elevator last Wednesday still makes him laugh out loud when he thinks of it in the shower on Saturday. Oh yes, you fantastic, gorgeous thing, if only you knew.
To another you are a passing thought. A distraction on the way to… what? Who cares? You're cute enough and amusing. Nothing serious. Just some chick who will end up a blip in the memory a few years from now. Time acceptably wasted. Conveniently cool with the non-commital gray area so many 20-somethings like to idle in and call it dating. A dot-dash, lingering little on the mind outside of meetings.
To one professor you might be the saving grace of the class. That student who writes thoughtful papers. The one who actually gets it. He saves your paper to grade last, hoping it will end a night of depressing critiques on a high note. You make reasoned points in class discussions. It's clear you've done the reading and synthesized it with the readings that came before. Without your presence the professor might be given to taking sips from his flask before class, moved by his utter loathing of the rest of the students, drones trying not to get called on for lack of preparation.
To another professor you are a nuisance. A brownnosing, simpering sycophant who embodies everything that is artificial and abhorrent. It's clear to him that you have no life since you must spend all of your time strategizing how to outwit your peers, as though class were a competition and not a conversation among intellectuals. He delights in marking up your verbose term papers, accusing you of masking lack of understanding with complicated sentences that serve no purpose other than self-aggrandization.
You can kill yourself trying to reinvent your persona, attempting to project the best possible version of yourself to as wide an audience as possible. But even if you captured the hearts of all Americans, there would still be a billion Brits and Bengalis and Bundesrepublik Deutschlanderins who don't give a rat's ass about you.
So don't sweat it, yo.
Notes from the bus
Friday:
I'm fairly certain this week's morning operator of the 15 needs counseling for some sort of serious personal anguish that has manifested itself into aggression toward those who utilize public transportation. Every time this man stops the bus he brakes so suddenly and fiercely that all of the passengers lurch forward, their necks straining to keep their heads in place above their shoulders.I know now that I need to hang onto something for the duration of the trip. It makes me too car sick to read. This style of driving is reminiscent of my mother's. I remember Erin once saying that she thought my mom was going to miss the turn for our house the first couple of times she rode with her, because she would drive until the chicken moment when she would brake forcefully and make the turn onto Roundup Lane, testing the torque limits of her Camry.
--I'm an advocate for requiring annual driving tests at the onset of the receipt of Social Security retirement benefits. I'm going to add routine ghost appraisals of bus drivers' abilities to my limited list of positive government audits of its citizens. I know driving a public bus is a fairly thankless, and, likely, rather irritating job, so join a karate class or something if you hate driving the bus. Don't slam your lead foot on the brakes in a passive-aggressive pity party meant to convey your frustration with your lot in life.--
Tuesday:
The evening commute on Denny Way is enough to make a man physically angry, what with its seemingly endless stream of cars that sit through light after light without moving. It's like Seattle's own little nightly version of the packed-highway flight from Hurricane Katrina. Nobody moves. In spite of the emotional mini-drama that unfolds in my mind as I stand outside of the Greyhound station staring up the hill at the unmoving cars, willing the 8 to be one of them, my irritation dissipates when I board the bus. The operator is a long-haired, thirty-something surfer culture cast-off who smiles perpetually and makes no apologies or complaints for having the shittiest possible route during rush hour.
Today I stepped up to scan my bus pass, inadvertently sliding it through the scanner upside down. When I righted it and slid it through correctly he congratulated me, "Right on!" I held my fist up at his chest level and he knocked it with his. For the next twenty-five or so minutes that it took to drive about one mile down Denny I tried to emulate this guy's chill. Developing an ulcer in reaction to a completely helpless situation would be rather a somber reminder that one is hideously uptight.
Wednesday:
I took the Express bus to get home tonight after I transferred from the 8. This was my first mistake. The Express bus makes limited stops and is, thus, much faster than the normal buses. What little benefit this has for my patience is greatly overshadowed by the feeling, upon entering an Express bus, that one has stepped into a holding area for subjects of a medical quarantine. This bus was packed with people- people who smell. Bad. I walked to the back of the bus in search of less odiferous air. Even there people were standing, but there was an empty seat next to a candidate for an It's Pat casting call.
Second, more significant mistake: I sat down next to IT. In the future, a good rule to follow states that if a considerable number of discontinuous individuals have chosen to stand rather than occupy an empty seat, there is clearly something wrong with the person next to the empty seat, or maybe there are invisible daggers in the seat's cushioning. The reason for the vacancy may remain a mystery to you forever, but for the love of God use the mental capacities granted you by millions of years of natural selection and don't fucking take the empty seat. Because IT radiates an acrid stench and hacks a phlegmy cough into a wadded kleenex in IT's hand every fifteen seconds, as if directed by a metronome.
Thursday:
There is a girl across from me who has shaved her eyebrows completely from her face and redrawn them, unevenly, in black pencil about an inch above her brow bones. I'm enjoying picturing her in the rain. Her make up will run, causing streaks in her eyebrows. The black droplets will run in streams directly into her eyes because she has no brow hair to dam the flow. How bizarre.
I'm fairly certain this week's morning operator of the 15 needs counseling for some sort of serious personal anguish that has manifested itself into aggression toward those who utilize public transportation. Every time this man stops the bus he brakes so suddenly and fiercely that all of the passengers lurch forward, their necks straining to keep their heads in place above their shoulders.I know now that I need to hang onto something for the duration of the trip. It makes me too car sick to read. This style of driving is reminiscent of my mother's. I remember Erin once saying that she thought my mom was going to miss the turn for our house the first couple of times she rode with her, because she would drive until the chicken moment when she would brake forcefully and make the turn onto Roundup Lane, testing the torque limits of her Camry.
--I'm an advocate for requiring annual driving tests at the onset of the receipt of Social Security retirement benefits. I'm going to add routine ghost appraisals of bus drivers' abilities to my limited list of positive government audits of its citizens. I know driving a public bus is a fairly thankless, and, likely, rather irritating job, so join a karate class or something if you hate driving the bus. Don't slam your lead foot on the brakes in a passive-aggressive pity party meant to convey your frustration with your lot in life.--
Tuesday:
The evening commute on Denny Way is enough to make a man physically angry, what with its seemingly endless stream of cars that sit through light after light without moving. It's like Seattle's own little nightly version of the packed-highway flight from Hurricane Katrina. Nobody moves. In spite of the emotional mini-drama that unfolds in my mind as I stand outside of the Greyhound station staring up the hill at the unmoving cars, willing the 8 to be one of them, my irritation dissipates when I board the bus. The operator is a long-haired, thirty-something surfer culture cast-off who smiles perpetually and makes no apologies or complaints for having the shittiest possible route during rush hour.
Today I stepped up to scan my bus pass, inadvertently sliding it through the scanner upside down. When I righted it and slid it through correctly he congratulated me, "Right on!" I held my fist up at his chest level and he knocked it with his. For the next twenty-five or so minutes that it took to drive about one mile down Denny I tried to emulate this guy's chill. Developing an ulcer in reaction to a completely helpless situation would be rather a somber reminder that one is hideously uptight.
Wednesday:
I took the Express bus to get home tonight after I transferred from the 8. This was my first mistake. The Express bus makes limited stops and is, thus, much faster than the normal buses. What little benefit this has for my patience is greatly overshadowed by the feeling, upon entering an Express bus, that one has stepped into a holding area for subjects of a medical quarantine. This bus was packed with people- people who smell. Bad. I walked to the back of the bus in search of less odiferous air. Even there people were standing, but there was an empty seat next to a candidate for an It's Pat casting call.
Second, more significant mistake: I sat down next to IT. In the future, a good rule to follow states that if a considerable number of discontinuous individuals have chosen to stand rather than occupy an empty seat, there is clearly something wrong with the person next to the empty seat, or maybe there are invisible daggers in the seat's cushioning. The reason for the vacancy may remain a mystery to you forever, but for the love of God use the mental capacities granted you by millions of years of natural selection and don't fucking take the empty seat. Because IT radiates an acrid stench and hacks a phlegmy cough into a wadded kleenex in IT's hand every fifteen seconds, as if directed by a metronome.
Thursday:
There is a girl across from me who has shaved her eyebrows completely from her face and redrawn them, unevenly, in black pencil about an inch above her brow bones. I'm enjoying picturing her in the rain. Her make up will run, causing streaks in her eyebrows. The black droplets will run in streams directly into her eyes because she has no brow hair to dam the flow. How bizarre.
Comes the revolution
One Saturday morning I woke up to the smell of fresh coffee. I walked out into the living room and Deo and Cole were already awake. CNN was on the television and they were eating oatmeal.
"Keith Olbermann just called the Bush Administration a dictatorship," Cole greeted me, laughing.
"Good morning," I replied, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. "That's interesting." Then I poured coffee in a mug, took a shower and went to the library 'cause I'm a big loser.
Of course, people have been calling Bush a totalitarian executive for years because of his administration's unilateral approach to policy:
>The US is a rebel among docile powers on the UN Security Council, vocally refusing in the grand theater of international diplomacy to rule out military intervention in the various countries currently threatening nuclear proliferation.
>Though Congress never approved John Bolton as the US ambassador to the UN, Bush left him at the post as "representative" for a year and a half.
>A month after the Baker-Hamilton Commission recommended a phased withdrawal from Iraq, Bush announced a surge in troop levels.
>Anyone who saw An Inconvenient Truth knows that Bush is pretty much single-handedly destroying the planet with his tendency to protect big businesses from environmental constraints and that, if only Al Gore had been elected president, the ice caps would remain fully intact.
>The ACLU will tell you that the Bush Administration is probably watching me type this right now and researching my ties with Al Qaeda or any other threat to national security.
>Bush locks foreign nationals up at Guantanamo without warrant.
…These are all terrible things, but George W. Bush is not a dictator. Just to suggest that he is is to make light of the suffering of people under actual totalitarian rulers. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe rules over a nation that almost never allows foreign journalists to enter the country for fear that they might give the country negative press. In Zimbabwe the opposition parties are routinely crushed because Mugabe issues directives to his police forces to suppress, i.e. beat/shoot/burn, the originators of political discontent. Mugabe's picture graces the cover of newspapers and is readily visible in private stores, schools, all over the place.
I read a similar account regarding Saddam Hussein by a journalist who visited Baghdad before America's occupation of Iraq. She walked through a marketplace trying to count how many pictures of Hussein she saw, but lost count and decided to quantify it simply by saying, "More than one per minute." The removal of the large statue of Hussein from central Baghdad early into the war was propagandized in America as a shining moment for Democracy. I needn't remind you all of the wretched qualities that Hussein possessed as a leader that demarcated him as a dictator. Though I never supported the invasion, nor do I still, the rule of Saddam Hussein was never within the power of the Iraqi people to remedy. I do not mean this as a comment on the whole "Is the world better off without Saddam" issue; it is merely an observation of the electoral operations, or lack thereof, of one political system.
In North Korea, until recently, pictures of Kim Jong Il littered government buildings and public marketplaces. No official reason was given for the reduction of his likeness in the citizens' daily lives, but it was alleged by several insiders that Kim Jong-Il was concerned that the omnipresence of his image invited unflattering accusations of mental ideological dogma, or a "personality cult." The North Korean government is routinely accused of gross violations of human rights, holding up to 50 thousand people, including children, in a concentration camp for individuals accused of political crimes. Talk of Kim Jong Il's successor is an enigmatic topic that is never regarded as a choice for North Korean citizens.
Back in college I babysat for a very wealthy family one afternoon. They had one little girl, Taylor, who was six. Taylor and I played outside and colored in coloring books and then she took me up to her room to play with her dolls. I followed her through the doorway made of mahogany and looked around her lush digs. Then I noticed something sick; hanging over Taylor's nightstand was a framed picture of George W. and Laura Bush. Talk about brainwashing your kid.
In the documentary Jesus Camp a group of mostly homeschooled fundamentalist Christian kids pray before a life-sized, cardboard version of President Bush. The kids are led in worship by a crazy Evangelical woman (whom I'm not entirely convinced is not a lesbian) thanking God for the strong leadership of Bush in the face of the evils of homosexuality and abortion threatening to destroy our nation.
And yet, on telephone poles around the city, I see pictures of Bush portrayed as a monkey. My writing this stupid blog is evidence of the fact that we are not ruled by a dictator. People, lately, mistake the tyranny of the majority* for dictatorship. A tyrant executive implies that the citizenry has no power to change its government. George Bush is the president of the United States because we let him be. Many people stood behind the Iraq invasion initially at least in part because the Bush administration pushed the ideal of bringing democracy to the Middle East. Not for nothing! If you're outraged that this invasion was predicated on so many lies do not throw your hands up in despair. Take back your republic through the very tool we've been neglecting to exercise: enfranchisement. Apathy and "the deep slumber of a decided opinion" have led our nation to a point where presidents are elected by very few people, and yet so many are left to bitch about it.
You say you want a revolution? Read. Then vote. Or you don't get to complain.
________________________
*Of voters, anyway.
**Sometimes I think about posting what I'm listening to while I write these in that little box, but nobody could ever take me seriously ever again if I answered honestly. Oh Goddddddddddd.
"Keith Olbermann just called the Bush Administration a dictatorship," Cole greeted me, laughing.
"Good morning," I replied, rubbing sleep out of my eyes. "That's interesting." Then I poured coffee in a mug, took a shower and went to the library 'cause I'm a big loser.
Of course, people have been calling Bush a totalitarian executive for years because of his administration's unilateral approach to policy:
>The US is a rebel among docile powers on the UN Security Council, vocally refusing in the grand theater of international diplomacy to rule out military intervention in the various countries currently threatening nuclear proliferation.
>Though Congress never approved John Bolton as the US ambassador to the UN, Bush left him at the post as "representative" for a year and a half.
>A month after the Baker-Hamilton Commission recommended a phased withdrawal from Iraq, Bush announced a surge in troop levels.
>Anyone who saw An Inconvenient Truth knows that Bush is pretty much single-handedly destroying the planet with his tendency to protect big businesses from environmental constraints and that, if only Al Gore had been elected president, the ice caps would remain fully intact.
>The ACLU will tell you that the Bush Administration is probably watching me type this right now and researching my ties with Al Qaeda or any other threat to national security.
>Bush locks foreign nationals up at Guantanamo without warrant.
…These are all terrible things, but George W. Bush is not a dictator. Just to suggest that he is is to make light of the suffering of people under actual totalitarian rulers. In Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe rules over a nation that almost never allows foreign journalists to enter the country for fear that they might give the country negative press. In Zimbabwe the opposition parties are routinely crushed because Mugabe issues directives to his police forces to suppress, i.e. beat/shoot/burn, the originators of political discontent. Mugabe's picture graces the cover of newspapers and is readily visible in private stores, schools, all over the place.
I read a similar account regarding Saddam Hussein by a journalist who visited Baghdad before America's occupation of Iraq. She walked through a marketplace trying to count how many pictures of Hussein she saw, but lost count and decided to quantify it simply by saying, "More than one per minute." The removal of the large statue of Hussein from central Baghdad early into the war was propagandized in America as a shining moment for Democracy. I needn't remind you all of the wretched qualities that Hussein possessed as a leader that demarcated him as a dictator. Though I never supported the invasion, nor do I still, the rule of Saddam Hussein was never within the power of the Iraqi people to remedy. I do not mean this as a comment on the whole "Is the world better off without Saddam" issue; it is merely an observation of the electoral operations, or lack thereof, of one political system.
In North Korea, until recently, pictures of Kim Jong Il littered government buildings and public marketplaces. No official reason was given for the reduction of his likeness in the citizens' daily lives, but it was alleged by several insiders that Kim Jong-Il was concerned that the omnipresence of his image invited unflattering accusations of mental ideological dogma, or a "personality cult." The North Korean government is routinely accused of gross violations of human rights, holding up to 50 thousand people, including children, in a concentration camp for individuals accused of political crimes. Talk of Kim Jong Il's successor is an enigmatic topic that is never regarded as a choice for North Korean citizens.
Back in college I babysat for a very wealthy family one afternoon. They had one little girl, Taylor, who was six. Taylor and I played outside and colored in coloring books and then she took me up to her room to play with her dolls. I followed her through the doorway made of mahogany and looked around her lush digs. Then I noticed something sick; hanging over Taylor's nightstand was a framed picture of George W. and Laura Bush. Talk about brainwashing your kid.
In the documentary Jesus Camp a group of mostly homeschooled fundamentalist Christian kids pray before a life-sized, cardboard version of President Bush. The kids are led in worship by a crazy Evangelical woman (whom I'm not entirely convinced is not a lesbian) thanking God for the strong leadership of Bush in the face of the evils of homosexuality and abortion threatening to destroy our nation.
And yet, on telephone poles around the city, I see pictures of Bush portrayed as a monkey. My writing this stupid blog is evidence of the fact that we are not ruled by a dictator. People, lately, mistake the tyranny of the majority* for dictatorship. A tyrant executive implies that the citizenry has no power to change its government. George Bush is the president of the United States because we let him be. Many people stood behind the Iraq invasion initially at least in part because the Bush administration pushed the ideal of bringing democracy to the Middle East. Not for nothing! If you're outraged that this invasion was predicated on so many lies do not throw your hands up in despair. Take back your republic through the very tool we've been neglecting to exercise: enfranchisement. Apathy and "the deep slumber of a decided opinion" have led our nation to a point where presidents are elected by very few people, and yet so many are left to bitch about it.
You say you want a revolution? Read. Then vote. Or you don't get to complain.
________________________
*Of voters, anyway.
**Sometimes I think about posting what I'm listening to while I write these in that little box, but nobody could ever take me seriously ever again if I answered honestly. Oh Goddddddddddd.
I have a dream
Imagine a world
where children did not hunger.
Where the charity of the world was enough to feed them.
Imagine a world
where soldiers did not fight.
Where diplomacy was enough to solve problems.
Imagine a world
where workers were not disgruntled.
Where they are well-rested and commutes do not eat two hours of each day.
Imagine a world
where the bus was on time.
where children did not hunger.
Where the charity of the world was enough to feed them.
Imagine a world
where soldiers did not fight.
Where diplomacy was enough to solve problems.
Imagine a world
where workers were not disgruntled.
Where they are well-rested and commutes do not eat two hours of each day.
Imagine a world
where the bus was on time.
Inflation
Inflation affects a lot of people in ways that are not protected for by the market. If a person wants his life insurance value to keep pace with inflation he has to pay extra for a separate rider on his policy. Babysitting rates only rise to the next dollar level when parents realize the only person they can possibly get to watch their one-year-old for six dollars an hour is a pregnant, chain-smoking stripper. The teenage Kristys and MaryAnnes of the world have set the bar at $10.00. Free market economists have argued for centuries (well, over a century) that capitalism works because individuals will always look out for number one, thereby necessitating compromise with employers. The market is self-correcting.
And yet one sect of society, the homeless, has never really protected itself from the rising costs of goods due to inflation. Until recently, anyway.
As far back as I can remember panhandlers have asked passers by for their spare change. "Can you spare a quarter miss?"
"I'm sorry. I don't have any change."
"Okay. God bless you."
Lately, though, it's been, "Miss, can you spare a dollar or two?
"Ma'am, my car's broke down and I need $2.50 to catch the bus."
At first these requests seemed outrageous. Oh, you need two bucks? I'd think. Do you take debit?
When I was staring vacantly out of the windows today, though, it occurred to me: the cost of everything is rising. Why shouldn't the cost of being homeless, and by extension, charity, follow suit?
In just seven years the cost of goods has risen eighteen percent. An item that cost $1.00 in 2000 would cost $1.18 today*. That quarter you gave a homeless stranger back in 2000 is only worth twenty cents now. Not even two damn bits.
The problem is that there is very little incentive for people to proportionally increase their generosity toward our city's homeless. Throwing a few dollars at a homeless guy is not tax deductible. I know guys, though, who will not even accept their change from a cash transaction because they don't want it jangling around in their pockets. Sparing one's change ain't no thing, but any more than that is pushing it for most of us. Sometimes I think I would give a few dollars to one of those street performers with no talent to shut the hell up...
McDonald's items are no longer in the change range. The cheapest fare is found on the dollar menu. For someone deriving their income from the change of others this means at least two transactions to earn a Snack Wrap**. The city council is no help. They've basically encourage the homeless to drive up their asking price by banning the sale of cheap malt liquors in areas that are considered to be frequented by homeless drinkers. A man cannot even ride the Night Train around here. How can we expect a panhandler with a hankering for some beer to feel satisfied with a quarter when he has to raise eight bucks for a six pack of Heineken?
Most of us are protected by the State Legislature with annual minimum wage increases or by our employers through cost-of-living raises, so I implore you, the next time a panhandler asks you for a few bucks, remember that one dollar today was only 85 cents back in 2000. Give a man the dignity of a Snack Wrap.
*Inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
**I have no idea if the Snack Wrap is on the dollar menu, but I've smelled them and feel sorry for anyone who eats them.
And yet one sect of society, the homeless, has never really protected itself from the rising costs of goods due to inflation. Until recently, anyway.
As far back as I can remember panhandlers have asked passers by for their spare change. "Can you spare a quarter miss?"
"I'm sorry. I don't have any change."
"Okay. God bless you."
Lately, though, it's been, "Miss, can you spare a dollar or two?
"Ma'am, my car's broke down and I need $2.50 to catch the bus."
At first these requests seemed outrageous. Oh, you need two bucks? I'd think. Do you take debit?
When I was staring vacantly out of the windows today, though, it occurred to me: the cost of everything is rising. Why shouldn't the cost of being homeless, and by extension, charity, follow suit?
In just seven years the cost of goods has risen eighteen percent. An item that cost $1.00 in 2000 would cost $1.18 today*. That quarter you gave a homeless stranger back in 2000 is only worth twenty cents now. Not even two damn bits.
The problem is that there is very little incentive for people to proportionally increase their generosity toward our city's homeless. Throwing a few dollars at a homeless guy is not tax deductible. I know guys, though, who will not even accept their change from a cash transaction because they don't want it jangling around in their pockets. Sparing one's change ain't no thing, but any more than that is pushing it for most of us. Sometimes I think I would give a few dollars to one of those street performers with no talent to shut the hell up...
McDonald's items are no longer in the change range. The cheapest fare is found on the dollar menu. For someone deriving their income from the change of others this means at least two transactions to earn a Snack Wrap**. The city council is no help. They've basically encourage the homeless to drive up their asking price by banning the sale of cheap malt liquors in areas that are considered to be frequented by homeless drinkers. A man cannot even ride the Night Train around here. How can we expect a panhandler with a hankering for some beer to feel satisfied with a quarter when he has to raise eight bucks for a six pack of Heineken?
Most of us are protected by the State Legislature with annual minimum wage increases or by our employers through cost-of-living raises, so I implore you, the next time a panhandler asks you for a few bucks, remember that one dollar today was only 85 cents back in 2000. Give a man the dignity of a Snack Wrap.
*Inflation calculator: http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi
**I have no idea if the Snack Wrap is on the dollar menu, but I've smelled them and feel sorry for anyone who eats them.
